


Remember, Remember

by thedictophone



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedictophone/pseuds/thedictophone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The medieval, recently returned Arthur has some questions about modern-day holidays. (Oneshot, spoilers for S5E13)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember, Remember

It had taken Arthur some time to get his head around the holidays that the modern day kingdom insisted on celebrating. There was Christmas; a time of gifts and merrymaking and a large intake of wine, which Arthur favoured – it was the most like the celebrations held in the halls of Camelot throughout his youth. On the other hand, Merlin had informed him that its origins were in paganism, which in turn seemed to have taken from druid traditions. His father would have abhorred it, but personally Arthur rather enjoyed the concept.  
  
New Year’s celebrations he could understand; Valentine’s Day was apparently ‘ _commercialised to hell ___’; Halloween was a strange event that seemed to involve begging and deliberate trickery. What was currently puzzling Arthur was the small circle drawn around November first on Merlin’s kitchen calendar. He hadn’t noticed any advertising based around that date. (Advertisements were enormous in this new time – Arthur found them very useful in providing cultural context, though Merlin had advised him not to depend too heavily on them. Arthur couldn’t see anything wrong with them, except that they did sometimes tend to exaggerate; he had been rather disappointed when the can of Red Bull he had encouraged Merlin to buy for him had not, in fact, granted him the power of flight. This could, apparently, be achieved using something much more expensive called an ‘airline ticket’.)  
  
In the days leading up to Halloween, Arthur held back enquiring about the circled date. He suspected that Merlin would give his usual answer to the majority of his menial questions; ‘Just google it.’  
  
Being on no great terms with Merlin’s computer, though, Arthur was not very keen on the concept of googling anything. He never knew which suggestion to click on and he often forgot to knot the machine into the wall, resulting in the thing switching itself off haphazardly.  
  
On Halloween, while Merlin flicked through various channels showing a selection of films demonstrating entirely unrealistic depictions of people dying (Arthur thought he was rather more informed on the subject than the actors), Arthur brought it up.  
  
‘What’s November first?’  
  
‘Hunh?’ Merlin said, distracted by the moving image of a man in a mask wielding some violent-looking tool in the direction of a wailing maiden.  
  
‘The first of November, is it a holiday? I saw it on your calendar.’  
  
‘Oh,’ said Merlin, ‘Yeah.’ He continued flicking through channels.  
  
‘And? What is it?’ Arthur, sprawled across the two seater sofa, lifted a foot to prod at Merlin’s chair. It slid an inch across the carpet.  
  
‘It’s Día de los Muertos,’ said Merlin, pulling a face and continuing to not look at Arthur. ‘The day of the dead.’  
  
‘I thought that was tonight?’  
  
‘It’s a Mexican thing. Halloween is all about the dead being scary, Día de los Muertos is about – praying for them and celebrating their lives. Stuff like that.’ He’d finally landed on a channel that was showing something other than horror. He paused to watch a middle-aged woman re-pot some leafy plant.  
  
‘Oh,’ said Arthur. He considered this. ‘Doesn’t sound like much fun.’  
  
‘It’s good. They throw parties and paint their faces.’  
  
‘Do you throw a party?’  
  
‘No.’  
  
‘Why’s it on your calendar, then?’  
  
It wasn’t like he couldn’t think of a reason, but Arthur was obnoxious by habit, and he had recently come to realise that being alive had a great deal of merits – one of which was bothering Merlin.  
  
Merlin’s mouth opened and closed again. His eyes were still pointed at the television screen, but they had stopped following the progress of the woman’s hands as she pressed soil gently around the roots of the plant.  
  
Arthur raised his foot again, kicking at Merlin’s chair so that he slid another inch or so away. ‘Well?’  
  
‘I liked it,’ said Merlin, grabbing the arms of his chair so as to shuffle it back to its original position, ‘because it has the dead as being all right with being dead. You – everyone – if you died unhappy, at least you might have – been at peace later, I don’t know.’  
  
The television remote slid off the chair cushion with a _thunk ___as Merlin finished adjusting his seat.  
  
‘But I was coming back,’ said Arthur, after a pause. ‘You knew I was coming back.’  
  
‘Yeah. Maybe. But what if you came back as something like – that?’ Merlin gestured at the woman on the television screen, now elaborating on the origins of the pot plant. Arthur presumed he was referring to the legions of films they had just sampled featuring murderous spirits and the drooling undead. He considered this.  
  
‘Well,’ Arthur said, ‘You probably could have handled me. _Ancient Wizard versus Mad Zombie Prince ___. You could have put it on the television.’  
  
‘Ha, ha.’ Merlin folded his arms across his chest and leant back in his seat. Arthur wondered how many evenings Merlin had spent in that chair, in this house, alone. Maybe he’d preferred the sofa. Arthur didn’t know, because he’d spent every evening in this living room since he’d come back hogging it. To be fair, though, it was considerably more comfortable than his old bed, and Merlin had been experiencing the joys of sofas for a great many years already.  
  
‘Steady on, Merlin, don’t laugh too hard. You’ll hurt yourself.’  
  
Merlin pulled a face, but remained silent. Arthur stretched out his leg, once again threatening Merlin’s seating arrangement. Merlin raised his eyebrows as Arthur’s foot drifted closer to the arm of his chair, before attempting to slap it away. There was a brief exercise in kicking and slapping in which both the chair and sofa shuffled minutely across the carpet.  
  
‘If I had come back a ghost, I would have haunted you.’  
  
‘If you had come back a ghost, I would have exorcised you.’  
  
Arthur snorted disbelievingly. Merlin pushed his foot decisively away and for a minute or so they sat silently, watching the gardening programme come to an end.  
  
‘What do you usually do tomorrow, then?’  
  
Merlin leant over to pick up the remote from the floor, tapping it against his leg as the programme on screen rolled its end credits. ‘Just think about people. Light some candles. Bake some sweet bread, perhaps.’  
  
‘Oh, good. You can teach me to bake.’  
  
‘I can _try ___.’ Merlin switched off the television with a smirk.  
  
‘Rather rude, Merlin.’ Arthur stretched widely, flapping an arm in Merlin’s way as he tried to pass.  
  
‘You’re such a clotpole.’  
  
‘Good that there’s no such thing as a ghostly clotpole.’


End file.
